Quietly Transformative: Analysing Norm-Dynamics in Swedish Security Policymaking in the Absence of Crises

Despite their importance to the implementation of security and defence policy, less dramatic and more incremental events remain relatively overlooked in the study of security policymaking. Framing these as mid-range instances of security policymaking and applying a norm-dynamics framework, this article addresses that gap. It aims to elucidate how strategic culture, institutionalized norms, and discursive strategies interact to shape this layer of policymaking, drawing on an analysis of the Swedish parliament’s ratification of NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme in 1994 and the Host Nation Support agreement in 2016. The study shows how underlying mechanics in norm dynamics continue to be instrumental for policy transformation in the absence of crisis and war. The findings suggest that institutional inertia rooted in enduring norms acts as a brake on more radical security policy shifts, even when a nation’s security landscape is in flux. The study offers insights relevant for the analysis of the subtler norm dynamics in other parliamentary democracies facing similar mid-range security policy questions. Studying these more modest, incremental forms of policymaking is valuable in a context of shifting power alliances and normative uncertainty in global politics.